Freight Facility May Be Built

New Truck Terminal To Get Hearing

February 13, 2003|By PAUL MARKS; Courant Staff Writer

WINDSOR LOCKS — Plans for construction of a truck terminal along Old County Road will be the subject of a public hearing on March 10.

Watkins Motor Lines Inc., a Lakeland, Fla.-based national freight hauler, is seeking permission from the planning and zoning commission to develop a 40-acre site just south of the Federal Express terminal.

The new terminal would use Old County Circle for an entrance, plans submitted to the commission show.

Brookfield-Windsor Locks Limited Liability Corp., which acquired a large tract of former farmland west of Old County Road about five years ago, is seeking approval for a subdivision. That change would carve up about 62 acres into a 40-acre site for Watkins Motor Lines and two smaller sites fronting Old County Road.

The planning and zoning commission last month approved a change to the zoning code allowing use of a rear lot -- such as the Watkins project would use -- in an industrial zone.

The public hearing is scheduled as part of a March 10 meeting, which begins at 7 p.m. at town hall.

Plans call for a 10,000-square-foot terminal, a narrow building running north and south in the center of the lot, with a 25,000-square-foot maintenance and washing facility at the south end. Those buildings would be surrounded by a paved area for parking and loading of trucks.

Watkins is known as a ``less-than-truckload'' carrier of general commodities in the United States. The company operates more than 4,000 tractors and 11,500 trailers at its 132 U.S. locations. It employs about 12,000.